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Intel Developer Forum Your favourite publication was privileged tonight to have held the package of Merced in its hands and not only talk to the architects but also to Steve Smith, who runs the whole show. Both Stephen Smith, VP and general manager of the Merced programme, and Hemar Dhulla, IA-64 programme manager, were keen to stress they almost had everything right. Smith said, showing The Register the packaging of Merced of which more later: "Everything is there apart from the silicon." The design, called the pin array cartridge (PAC), will include fast static RAM, made and designed by Intel, Smith confirmed. The package, which weighs about 6oz (170g), has an alloy metal on its base to dissipate the heat. It is the size of a standard American index card, he said. Smith claimed he had no knowledge of metallurgy but although the heat sink looked a little like the metal Aluminium, it was too heavy in our hands to convince us of that. It looked like steel and therefore must be some kind of super metallic thermal conductor. We have photographs but must have them converted into digital form before we can put them on our pages. Just down the road from the Forum is a rather clever looking firm that can do it. Thanks god ir is not Sunday in Palm Springs. Nevertheless, we are to blame in some senses because we forgot our battery heavy LG digital camera. This, we think, is good sense. Merced has clips on its sides, so allowing four to be hung from a motherboard, both below and above. The first rev, said Smith, will arrive in June as promised but Intel requires feedback from its OEMs. Smith was eloquent about the Linux platform and said that an announcement would come very soon. That could be as early as tomorrow. As it is early in the morning, we reserve the right to write our ten pages of notes up tomorrow. You will have to wait for that. Sorry. ®